AMERICA yesterday accused Iraq of building deadly germ weapons as it emerged the Pentagon is building a case for bombing the country as part of the war against terrorism.

AMERICA yesterday accused Iraq of building deadly germ weapons as it emerged the Pentagon is building a case for bombing the country as part of the war against terrorism.

The claim that Saddam Hussein's regime is continuing to flout international law came at an arms control conference in Geneva, where North Korea was also named as having a biological weapons programme.

It came as pressure grew in Washington for the next phase of the war against terror to target Iraq and other so-called rogue nations including Somalia and Sudan.

Pentagon planners are already looking for military targets in Iraq, including the elite Republican Guard's barracks, while they try to build a case which would convince the White House to give the go-ahead to a massive bombardment of the country.

The move would be designed to bring down the Iraqi dictator and finish the task started but left uncompleted by President George W Bush's father at the end of the Gulf War in

1991.

But there is a split between the Pentagon, which is in favour of action against Iraq, and the State Department, which opposes widening the war against terrorism in case it fractures the America-led coalition.

Backers of action against Iraq, led by deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, are now arguing in private that evidence is not needed to link Iraq to the September 11 attacks before launching an attack.

Yesterday America's under secretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, told a conference in Geneva the existence of a germ warfare programme in Iraq was "beyond dispute".